Chapter 3
Which of my palaces? Gold one by one, Of all the splendid houses of my throne, This day in grave thought have I over-gone: Those roofs of stars where I have lived alone Gladly with God; those blue-encompassed bowers Hushed round with lakes, and guarded with still flowers, Where I have watched a face from eve till morn, Wondering at being born-- Then on from morn again till the next eve, Still with strange eyes, unable to believe; And yet, though week and month and year went by. Incredulous of my ensorcelled eye. O had I thus in trance for ever stayed, Still were she there in the reed-girdled isle, And I there still--I who go treading now Eternity, a-hungered mile by mile: Because I pressed one kiss upon her brow,-- After a thousand years that seemed an hour Of looking on my flower, After that patient planetary fast, One kiss at last; One kiss--and then strange dust that once was she.
Sayest thou, Rose, "What is all this to me?" This would I answer, if it pleaseth thee, Thou Rose and Nightingale so strangely one: That of my palaces, gold one by one, I fell a-thinking, pondering which to-day, The day of the Blessed Saint, Saint Valentine, Which of those many palaces of mine, I, with bowed head and lowly bended knee, Might bring to thee. O which of all my lordly roofs that rise To kiss the starry skies May with great beams make safe that golden head, With all that treasure of hair showered and spread. Careless as though it were not gold at all-- Yet in the midnight lighting the black hall; And all that whiteness lying there as though It were but driven snow. Pondering on all these pinnacles and towers, That, as I come with trumpets, call me lord, And crown their battlements with girlhood flowers, I can but think of one. 'Twas not my sword That won it, nor was it aught I did or dreamed, But O it is a palace worthy thee! For all about it flows the eternal sea, A blue moat guarding an immortal queen; And over it an everlasting crown That, as the moon comes and the sun goes down, Adds jewel after jewel, gem on gem, To the august appropriate diadem Of her, in whom all potencies that are Wield sceptres and with quiet hands control, Kind as that fairy wand the evening star, Or the strong angel that we call the soul.
Thou splendid girl that seemest the mother of all, Dear Ceres-Aphrodite, with every lure That draws the bee to honey, with the call Of moth-winged night to sinners, yet as pure As the white nun that counts the stars for beads; Thou blest Madonna of all broken needs, Thou Melusine, thou sister of sorrowing man, Thou wave-like laughter, thou dear sob in the throat, Thou all-enfolding mercy, and thou song That gathers up each wild and wandering note, And takes and breaks and heals and breaks the heart With the omnipotent tenderness of art; And thou Intelligence of rose-leaves made That makes that little thing the brain afraid.
For thee my Castle of the Spring prepares: On the four winds are sped my couriers, For thee the towered trees are hung with green; Once more for thee, O queen, The banquet hall with ancient tapestry Of woven vines grows fair and still more fair. And ah! how in the minstrel gallery Again there is the sudden string and stir Of music touching the old instruments, While on the ancient floor The rushes as of yore Nymphs of the house of spring plait for your feet-- Ancestral ornaments. And everywhere a hurrying to and fro, And whispers saying, "She is so sweet--so sweet"; O violets, be ye not too late to blow, O daffodils be fleet: For, when she comes, all must be in its place, All ready for her entrance at the door, All gladness and all glory for her face, All flowers for her flower-feet a floor; And, for her sleep at night in that great bed Where her great locks are spread, O be ye ready, ye young woodland streams To sing her back her dreams.
PEACE
June 28th, 1919
From the tennis lawn you can hear the guns going, Twenty miles away, Telling the people of the home counties That the peace was signed to-day. To-night there'll be feasting in the city; They will drink deep and eat-- Keep peace the way you planned you would keep it (If we got the Boche beat). Oh, your plan and your word, they are broken, For you neither dine nor dance; And there's no peace so quiet, so lasting, As the peace you keep in France.
You'll be needing no Covenant of Nations To hold your peace intact. It does not hang on the close guarding Of a frail and wordy pact. When ours screams, shattered and driven, Dust down the storming years, Yours will stand stark, like a grey fortress, Blind to the storm's tears.
Our peace ... your peace ... I see neither. They are a dream, and a dream. I only see you laughing on the tennis lawn; And brown and alive you seem, As you stoop over the tall red foxglove, (It flowers again this year) And imprison within a freckled bell A bee, wild with fear....
* * * * *
Oh, you cannot hear the noisy guns going: You sleep too far away. It is nothing to you, who have your own peace, That our peace was signed to-day.
* * * * *
EUGENE MASON
ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA
THE CYNDUS
1
Beneath th' triumphal blue, th' riotous day, Her silvern galley beats the black flood white, Whilst the long sillage hoards some close delight Of incense, flutes, and stir of silk array. From forth the pompous poop, her royal sway, Near where the mystic hawk stands poised for flight, The Queen, erect, stares out, flushed, exquisite, Like some great golden bird that spies her prey.
The tryst is kept: her spoiled warrior there: And the brown gipsy in the swooning air Spreads amber arms the purple glow stains red; Nor hath she seen, nor known with shuddering breath. Symbols of Doom, those Youths Divine who shed Rose-leaves on sombre deeps--Desire and Death.
BATTLE AT SUNSET
2
The shock was stern: the cohorts near to rout. Staying the flight, tribune, centurion, From heat of carnage 'neath th' enduring sun Breathe blood, and smell its savour as they shout. With haggard eyes, that count the dead about, Each spearman marks the archers, all undone, Whirl like heaped leaves before Euroclydon. From the brown faces sweat falls gout by gout.
That fated hour--with many a shaft stuck o'er, Streaming in burnished brass and purple weed, Red with the scarlet flux of wounds full sore, With trumpets shrilling forth their urgent need, Against the sunset, on his frighted steed-- Surged, glorious, the ensanguined Emperor.
ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA
3
From the high terrace they might see far down, Egypt asleep, by plague of heat opprest; Old Father Nile, in beauty manifest, Roll his rich flood towards many a famous town. And lo, the Roman felt 'neath mail and gown (Captain and slave, soothing a child to rest) Relax and fail on his triumphant breast That body made for love, by love o'erthrown.
Lifting her silken head and blanched face To him whose senses reel at such rare grace And piercing sweetness, she prefers her lips; But stooping close, his ardent eyes behold In those deep eyes, sewn thick with points of gold, A hazardous sea bestrewn with fleeing ships.
_From the French of Jose Maria de Heredia_
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THEODORE MAYNARD
DIRGE
If on a day it should befall That love must have her funeral; And men weep tears that love is dead, That never more her gracious head Can turn to meet their eyes and hold Their hearts with chains of silky gold; That never more her hands can be As dear as was virginity; That in her coffin there is laid Beauty, the body of a maid, The body of one so piteous-sweet, With candles burning at her feet And cowled monks singing requiem....
I think I would not go with them, Her lordly lovers, to the place Where lies that lovely mournful face, That curving throat and marvellous hair Under the sconces' yellow flare-- How shall a man be comforted When love is dead, when love is dead?
But I would make my moan apart, Keeping my dreams within my heart-- For guarded as a sepulchre Shall be the house I built for her Of silver spires and pinnacles With carillons of mellow bells, A house of song for her delight Whose joy was as the strong sunlight-- But now love's ultimate word is said, For love is dead, for love is dead!
But even should all hope be lost Some memory, like a thin white ghost, Might stealthily move in midnight hours Among those silent sacred towers, And glimmer on the moonlit lawn Until the cold ironic dawn Arises from her saffron bed-- When love is dead, when love is dead.
DESIDERAVI
Lest, tortured by the world's strong sin, Her little bruised heart should die-- Give her your heart to shelter in, O earth and sky!
Kneel, sun, to clothe her round about With rays to keep her body warm; And, kind moon, shut the shadows out That work her harm.
Yes, even shield her from my will's Wild folly--hold her safe and close!-- For my rough hand in touching spills Life from the rose.
But teach me, too, that I may learn Your passion classical and cool; To me, who tremble so and burn, Be pitiful!
LAUS DEO!
Praise! that when thick night circled over me In chaos ere my time or world began, Thy finger shaped my body cunningly, Thy thought conceived me ere I was a man! Thy Spirit breathed upon me in the dark Wherein I strangely grew, Bestowing glowing powers to the spark The mouth of heaven blew!
Praise! that a babe I leapt upon the world Spread at my feet in its magnificence, With trees as giants, flowers as flags unfurled. And rains as diamonds in their excellence! Praise! for the solemn splendour of surprise That came with breaking day; For all the ranks of stars that met my eyes When sunset burned away!
Praise! that there burst on my unfolding heart The coloured radiance of leafy June, With choirs of song-birds perfected in art, And nightingales beneath the summer moon-- Praise! that this beauty, an unravished bride Doth hold her lover still; Doth hide and beckon, laugh at me, and hide Upon each grassy hill.
Praise! that I know the dear capricious sky In every infinitely varied mood-- Yet under her maternal wings can lie The smallest chick among her countless brood! Praise! that I hear the strong winds wildly race Their chariots on the sea, But feel them lift my hair and stroke my face Softly and tenderly!
Praise! for the joy and gladness thou didst send, When I have sat in gracious fellowship In firelight for an evening with a friend. When wine and magic entered at the lip! For laughter which the fates can overthrow Thy mercy doth accord-- To Thee, who didst my godlike joy bestow, I lift my glass, O Lord!
Praise! that a lady leaning from her height, A lady pitiful, a tender maid, A queen majestical unto my sight, Spoke words of love to me, and sweetly laid Her hand within my own unworthy hand! (Rise, soul, to greet thy guest, Mysterious love, whom none shall understand, Though love be all confessed!)
Praise! that upon my bent and bleeding back Was stretched some share of Thy redeeming cross, Some poverty as largess for my lack, Some loss that shall prevent my utter loss! Praise! that thou gavest me to keep joy sweet The sanguine salt of pain! Praise! for the weariness of questing feet That else might quest in vain!
* * * * *
T. STURGE MOORE
AFORETIME
TO GORDON BOTTOMLEY
Dear exile from the hurrying crowd, At work I muse to you aloud; Thought on my anvil softens, glows, And I forget our art has foes; For life, the mother of beauty, seems A joyous sleep with waking dreams. Then the toy armoury of the brain Opining, judging, looks as vain As trowels silver gilt for use Of mayors and kings, who have to lay Foundation stones in hope they may Be honoured for walls others build. I, in amicable muse, With fathomless wonder only filled, Whisper over to your ear Listening two hundred odd miles north, And give thought chase that, were you here, Our talk would never run to earth.
Man can answer no momentous question: Whence comes his spirit? Has it lived before? Reason fails; hot springs of feeling spout Their snowy columns high in the dim land Of his surmise--violent divine decisions That often rule him: and at times he views Portraits of places he has never been to, Yet more minute and vivid than remembrance, Of boyhood homes, sail between sleep and waking Like some mirage, refuting all experience With topsy-turvy ships, That steals by in dead calms through tropic haze: And many a man in his climacteric years, Thoughts and remembered words have roused from sleep With knowledge that he lacked on lying down: And I, lapped in a trance of reverie, doubt Some spore of episodes Anterior far beyond this body's birth, Dispersed like puffs of dust impalpable, Wind-carried round this globe for centuries, May, breathed with common air, yet swim the blood, And striking root in this or that brain, raise Imaginations unaccountable; One such seems half-implied in all I am, And many times re-pondered shapes like this:
A child myself I watched a woman loll Like to a clot of seaweed thrown ashore; Heavy and limp as cloth soaked in black dye, She glooms the noontide dazzle where a bay Bites into vineyarded flats close-fenced by hills, Over whose tops lap forests of cork and fir And reach in places half down their rough slopes. Lower, some few cleared fields square on the thickets Of junipers and longer thorns than furze So clumped that they are trackless even for goats I know two things about that woman: first She is a slave and I am free, and next As mothers need their sons' love she needs mine. Longings to utter fond compassionate sounds Stir through me, checked by knowing wiser folk Reprobate such indulgence. Ill at ease, Mute, yet her captive, I thrust brown toes through Loose sand no daily large tides overwhelm To cake and roll it firm and smooth and clean As the Atlantic remakes shores, you know. But there, like trailing skirts, long flaws of wind Obliterate the prints feet during calms Track over and over its always lonely stretch, Till some will have, it ghosts must rove at night; For folk by day are rare, yet a still week Leaves hardly ten yards anywhere uncrossed; Tempest spreads all revirginate like snow, Half burying dead wood snapped off from tossed trees, Since right along the foreshore, out of reach Of furious driven waves, three hundred pines Straggle the marches between sand and soil. Like maps of stone-walled fields their branching roots Hold the silt still so that thin grass grows there, Its blades whitened with travelling powdery drift The besom of the lightest breeze sets stirring. That woman's gaze toils worn from remote years, Yet forward yearns through the bright spacious noon, Beyond the farthest isle, whose filmy shape Floats faint on the sea-line. I, scooping grains up with the frail half-shell Pale green and white-lined of sea-urchin, knew What her eyes sought as often children know Of grief or sin they could not name or think of Yet sooth or shrink from, so I saw and longed To heal her tender wound and yet said naught. The energy of bygone joy and pain Had left her listless figure charged with magic That caught and held my idleness near hers. Resentful of her power, my spirit chafed Against its own deep pity, as though it were Raised ghost and she the witch had bid it haunt me. What's more I knew this slave by rights should glean And faggot drift-wood, not lounge there and waste My father's food dreaming his time away. For then as now the common-minded rich Grudged ease to those whose toil brought them in means For every waste of life. At length I spoke, Insulting both my inarticulate soul And her with acted anger: "Lazy wretch, Is it for eyes like yours to watch the sea As though you waited for a homing ship? My father might with reason spend his hours Scanning the far horizon; for his Swan Whose outward lading was full half a vintage Is now months overdue." She turned on me Her languor knit and, through its homespun wrap, Her muscular frame gave hints of rebel will, While those great caves of night, her eyes, faced mine, Dread with the silence of unuttered wrongs: At last she spoke as one who must be heeded. Truly I am not clear Whether her meaning was conveyed in words (She mingled accents of an eastern tongue With deformed phrases of our native Latin) Or whether thought from her gaze poured through mine. The gravity of recollected life Was hers, condensed and, like a vision, flashed Suddenly on the guilty mind, a whole Compact, no longer a mere tedious string Of moments negligible, each so small As they were lived, but stark like a slain man Who would alive have been ourself with twice The skill, the knowledge, the vitality Actually ours. Yea, as a tree may view With fingerless boughs and lorn pole impotent, An elephant gorged upon its leaves depart, Men often have reviewed an unwieldy past, That like a feasted Mammoth, leisured and slow, Turned its back on their warped bones. Even thus, Momentous with reproach, her grave regard Made me feel mean, cashiered of rank and right, My limbs that twelve good years had nursed were numbed And all their fidgety quicksilver grew stiff, Novel and fevering hallucinations Invaded my attention. So daylight When shutters are thrown back spreads through a house; As then the dreams and terrors of the night Decamp, so from my mind were driven All its own thoughts and feelings. Close she leant Propped on a swarthy arm, while the other helped With eloquent gesture potent as wizard wand, Veil the world off as with an airy web, Or flowing tent a-gleam with pictured folds. These tauten and distend--one sea of wheat, Islanded with black cities, borders now The voluminous blue pavilion of day. There-under to the nearest of those towns This woman younger by ten years made haste While at her side ran a small boy of six. They neared the walls, half a huge double gate Lay prostrate, though the other by stone hinges Hung to its flanking tower. The path they followed Threaded an old paved road whose flags were edged With dry grass and dry weeds, even cactuses Had pushed the stones up or found root in muck heaps: The path struck up the slope of the fallen door, Basalt like midnight, o'er which dusty feet Had greyed a passage, for it rested on Some debris fallen from the left-hand tower, And from its upper edge rude blocks like steps Led down into the straight main street, that ran Past eyeless buildings mined as it were from coal, And earthquake-raised to light. Palaces and Roofless wide-flighted colonnaded temples, The uncemented walls piled-plumb with blocks Squared, polished, fitted with daemonic patience. Each gaping threshold high again as need be Waited a nine-foot lord to enter hall, Where the least draughty corner sheltered now Half-tented hut or improvised small home For Arab, brown, light-footed and proud-necked As was this woman with the compelling voice. Their present hutched and hived within that past As bees in the parchment chest of Samson's lion; And all seem conscious that their life was sweet, Like mice who clean their faces after meals And have such grace of movement, when unscared, As wins the admiration even of those Whose stores they rob and soil. I saw her eyes Young with contentment in her son And smaller babe and in their handsome sire, And knew that many a supper had been relished With hearts as joyous as waited while she cooked And served upon returning to their cot In hall where once far other hearts caroused. They and their tribe could never reap a tithe Of the vast harvest rustling round those ruins, And over which a half-moon soon set forth From black hills mounded up both east and south, While north-west her light played on distant summits; All the huge interspace floored with standing corn Which kings afar send soldiery to reap, Who now, beside a long canal cut straight In ancient days, have pitched their noisy camp Which on that vast staid silence makes a bruise Of blare and riot that its robust health Will certainly heal in a brief lapse of time.
One night, re-thought on after ten whole years, Is like the condor high above the Andes, A speck with difficulty found again Once the attention quits it. And I next Descried our woman under breathless noon, Bathing in a clear lane of gliding water Whose banks seem lonely as the path of light Crossing mid ocean south of Capricorn. Her son steals warily after a butterfly And is as hushed with hope to capture it As are the birds with heat. An insect hum Circles the spot as round a cymbal's rim, Long after it has clanged, tingles a throb Which in a dream forgets the parent sound, Oppressed by this protracted and awe-filled pause, She hardly dares to wade the stream and moves As though in dread to wake some sleeping god, Yet still she nears and nears the further bank Where there is shade under a shumac's eaves. The brilliant surface cut her right in two, And the reflection of her bronzed torso Hid all beneath the polished gliding mirror; How her face listened to that sleep divine Whose audible breath was tuned to dreams of bliss!
Sudden, as though the woof of heaven were torn, A strident shout rang from some neighbour shrubs Three Nubian soldiers ran upon her with Delighted oily faces. Screaming first Commands to her small son to make for home, She laboured to recross the current as when In nightmares the scared soul expects to die Tortured by mutiny in limbs like lead, But as the playful lion of the sea Climbs the rock ledges hard by Fingal's cave To throw himself down into deep green baths, While others barking follow his vigorous lead, The foremost Abyssinian threw his weight Before her with a splash that hid them both, As the explosion of light-filled liquid parcels Shot forth in all directions. In his arms She re-appeared, a tragic terrified face Beside his coarse one laughing with success. Squeezing her with a pantomime of love, He turns to follow an arrow with his eyes That his companion, still upon the bank, Has aimed towards her son's small head that bobbed Like a black cork across the basking corn. But from the level of the sunk stream bed Neither he nor she could see the target aimed at, Yet in the pause they heard the poor child scream; A second arrow, second scream; she fought, But soon like bundle bound, hung o'er his shoulder, Helpless as a mouse in cat's mouth carried off In search of quiet, there to play with it. Those arrows missed?--or did they not? The child Shrieked twice, yet scarcely like a wounded thing She thought and hoped and still but thinks and hopes. Where is that boy? Where is her husband now? While she submitted body to force and soul To the great shuddering violence of despair How had their life progressed in that far place? Compassion fused my consciousness with hers And second-sighted eloquence arose To claim my mind for rostrum, But obstinately tranced My eyes clung to their vision; For regions to explore allure the boy No stretch of thought or sea of feeling tempts. Entranced, the mind I then had, haunted Those basalt ruins. High on sable towers Some silky patriarchal goat appears And ponders silent streets, or suddenly Some nanny, her huge bag swollen with milk, Trots out on galleries that unfenced run Round vacant courts, there, stopped by plaintive kids, Lets them complete their meal. While always, always, Throughout, those mazed, sullen and sun-soaked walls, The steady, healthy wind, Which often blows for weeks without a lull Across that upland plain, Flutes staidly. Moaning Continuously as seas Or forests before storm, And, gathering moment, Articulated by her woe, begins With second-sighted eloquence To wail through me, Nigh as unheeded, As though it still had been Meaningless wind.